Bouchon Bakery Rockefeller

As I started telling you in my previous post, I was recently in New York for a conference/training for 6 days. The first day, Saturday, was essentially a travel day. Then, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I was at the conference from 9-5, with a 1 hour lunch break from 12:20-1:30. That limited my comfort level of where I would be able to go to lunch and return in time to not miss anything at the session.

So how did I find lunches in Midtown Manhattan?

One way to do this is to first, search your current location on Google Maps. In my example below, my conference was at the Sofitel New York (I stayed at a separate hotel to save money for my company). Then, when you click on the location, click the link for Search Nearby, which will expand this menu to include a field to use.

You can use this field to search for what you need- happy hour, lunch, pizza, bagel, tacos, etc.

This usually is what I do when I travel for work, but since I was in Manhattan there are lots of little dots that pop up of places to eat (this isn’t true of many other places I ended up going). So what now?

Fortunately, because New York is such a foodie town, I did a search of “Best lunch in Midtown Manhattan” and got several website articles to peruse. Usually, in smaller towns, I might only find a link to some old Chowhound board discussions, but that has also paid off to read and pick something out that sounds appealing. I picked the Serious Eats guide of “Where to Eat Near Rockefeller Center” as a reliable source, and combined this with other things I remember reading or being recommended.

So this was my first lunch for the trip. It was so crowded at Bouchon Bakery Rockefeller that a group of ladies was braving sitting outside on their patio, but the crowd comes and goes. I awkwardly put my bag and coat down by a stool I saw by the corner between 2 groups after putting in my order, but when the order actually came up, there was a huge section of countertop that had opened up with seats. People here tend not to linger long.

The Bouchon Baker Rockefeller menu (which is annoyingly not on their site but you can get a gist at UrbanSpoon or the New York Mag for a menu) are light lunches of sandwiches, salads, cheese plates, soup, and of course their fabulous baked goods of macaroons and cookies as well as others like croissants, scones, etc. Below, the Smoked Salmon with herbed cream cheese, pickled red onion, and peppercress on brioche and the Roasted Sweet Potato on almond focaccia with brown butter aioli sounded tempting too.

Not so much the dog biscuits admittedly, which by the way are enriched with foie gras and chicken stock. One story goes that the dog treats came about because the Bouchon Kitchen in Yountville always had leftover random pieces of fois gras scraps so they used it this way so they wouldn’t go to waste and were still enjoyed.

I came to Bouchon Bakery twice. The first time was exactly for that grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup. It is not just a plain grilled cheese or plain tomato soup, of course- it’s a san marzano tomato soup that is tangy and intensely tomato-y, perfect for a dip here or there with the gooey fontina & gruyère cheese sandwich whose thick pain au lait (milk bread) manages to be both crusty on the outside but soft and doughy buttery richness inside.

On my second visit, I had decided to eat leftovers from previous meals, and brought that from the hotel. However, I still used my lunch stipend to get a few treats to keep me sugared up on the plane (this would pay off since my flight would be delayed and I wouldn’t reach home until 4am NY time or 1am PDX time!). These treats kept me in a good mood, instead of a bad hungry mood. These included a croissant, the Tko Thomas Keller Oreo, the Nutter Butter cookie, and the TLC (The Laura Cunningham) Oatmeal Cookie. She didn’t like dried fruits and picked them out of typical oatmeal raisin cookies, which I totally agree with, so this cookie substitutes pecans for raisins! After the Nutter Butter the TLC was my favorite cookie.

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[…] sherry vinegar & parmesan was a poor comparison to the one you can get on the main street at Bouchon Bakery (as I wrote in my last post). I still clung to the soup to balance out the dry mushyness of the multigrain half sandwich with […]

About Pech

Pechluck's Food Adventures
Enjoying deliciousness in Portland & wherever travels may lead me.
My name is Pech, short for Pechluck. I enjoy adventures in eating - dining out and cooking and imbibing for local Portland deliciousness or wherever travels lead.

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Disclosure: There may be at times sponsored posts where the ticket to an event or meal or sample product to review was complimentary, but I will always provide my honest opinion and assessment of all products and experiences I may be given. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.